<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>I Wanna Tell You I'm Alright But I Could Be Lying by Basic_instinct40</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26384761">I Wanna Tell You I'm Alright But I Could Be Lying</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Basic_instinct40/pseuds/Basic_instinct40'>Basic_instinct40</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Magicians (TV), The Magicians - Lev Grossman</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Body Horror, But its only talked about, Dark Humor, F/F, Gallows Humor, Ignores The Magicians Season 4 Ending, Implied referenced of past Rape, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Julia Wicker is a Good Friend, Julia Wicker is a top, Kady and Julia live in New Jersey, Kady hates it, Kady would like for Quentin to leave her house and almost never come back, M/M, Male-Female Friendship, Or at least I do ignore Season 5 for sure, Past Rape/Non-con, Quentin Coldwater Lives, This tags make this story seem dark and it isnt I promise, bad dancing</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 09:02:49</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,270</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26384761</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Basic_instinct40/pseuds/Basic_instinct40</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Quentin flopped on the bed like a puppet who had his strings sniped. “It’s complicated.” </p>
<p>Julia yawned. “It always is.”  She watched him pout and then huffed an exasperated sigh. “You wanna dance?” Julia didn’t wait for his answer. It wasn’t needed. “Let’s dance.”</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Kady Orloff-Diaz/Julia Wicker, Quentin Coldwater &amp; Julia Wicker</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>12</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>I Wanna Tell You I'm Alright But I Could Be Lying</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Like a dog back to its vomit —that kind of sums up my feelings when dealing with The Magicians. Fuck. I could start ten thousand essays, and I pretty much have - about what these characters mean to me. We've all got our sob stories. Please be mindful of the tags and know that I'm not making light of depression or what happened to Julia ( you know, the ritual). I deal with certain things by writing them in humorous ways. Just nope out of it if it isn't for you. This was meant to be a part of a bigger story that I'll never finish. I hope someone out there enjoys this.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Kady knew Quentin was a sucker for their canine cherub and thrust the little ball of terror into his clumsy arms as soon as he shuffled beyond their kitchen threshold. Both women rolled their eyes as he sputtered, cooing names at the tail-wagging puppy. “What’s his name, again?” Quentin asked. </p>
<p>Kady shrugged, grabbing three bottles of water out of the fridge. “Puppy, for now. Maybe, Dog, when he gets bigger.” She handed two of the water bottles over to Julia, not adding any further information. Instead, she plopped her ass on the wooden table, and relaxed her bare feet in the matching chair. The nameless creature licked obliviously at Quentin’s chin, as he studied one half of its parent’s. “But that’s so boring.”<br/>
Julia knew Quentin couldn’t help the way he whined and interjected with his opinions. “You guys know so many languages?” He peered down as if he could reach into the depths of the dog’s soul and return with its one valid name. Julia recognized that familiar crazed look in her friend’s eye. It blared, backed the fuck up, and proceeded with caution. Quentin showed the classic signs of speaking without a filter which probably meant he wanted to name the tiny beast something along the lines of Ichabod or Mendel. Julia imagined a perfect display of disgust on her girlfriend’s face at the suggestions, and she’d hidden her grin behind a sip of water. She’d let Q dig his own grave. </p>
<p>“You know when Teddy was six, Eliot thought he was finally old enough for a pet, but there aren’t many dogs in--” It was as if Quentin’s metaphorical tail stopped wagging. A slip-up of a name that everyone in his inner circle pretended didn’t exist. A coping method Quentin leaned on, much in the same way Eliot used his cane. Julia thought it was a Dollar Tree-branded plastic bag covering a two-story house demolition. She wasn’t shocked to find that all their friends had non-verbally agreed to help keep the cone of silence around Q and Eliot with their paper thin-illusion surrounding the life they had lived in Fillory. What’s there to talk about if you refuse to talk?</p>
<p>To keep in good standing with the unspoken agreement, she’d taken Quentin upstairs to her bedroom to listen to early 2000 pop music and reminisce about the not so good old days. Back when they both pretended to be straight and thought their choreographed dance sets might one day make them popular.  </p>
<p>“You mean like last year?" Yelled Kady after them. </p>
<p>“Love you, too, baby,” Julia hollered back. “Will you bring us some snacks, please?” She cupped her hands around her mouth, pitching her commands towards Kady from their position at the top of the stairs. “Those granny smith apples with almond butter? On a tray, please?” Julia cleared her throat and dismissed Kady’s muffled complaints.<br/>
“Better put those apple slices on a fucking tray,” she muttered and pushed the bedroom door open.  Julia didn’t care if Quentin judged her relationship. He was the one who showed up at her doorstep, duffle bag in hand, needing a place to “think.” A place to get “away.” As if dying in the past year and coming back from the afterlife wasn’t enough “away” time.</p>
<p>Flopping stomach down on the four-poster bed, Julia stopped Quentin before he followed. Without looking, she pointed her sock-covered feet at the fuzzy teal rug that laid to the right of the frame. “Pups not allowed on the bed. You can play with him there.”<br/>
He sat with a gruff, “Oh,” but did as she instructed. The silence that followed wasn’t something Julia minded. She preferred the comfortable domestic stillness that allowed her to sink in deep when she was studying. Ever since she moved in with Kady, she’d been able to create a pocket of safety that no one else could access. An illusory atmosphere that she began to perceive for what it was growing to be; Home. </p>
<p>The silence that Quentin brought with him was the opposite. It swarmed the room and shoved its way into the bed with her like a summer camp bunkmate she’d promise to keep in touch with, but abandoned the moment her parents drove her from the campsite. Julia tugged her hair tie from her ponytail with more force than necessary, ripping out a few strands of her long dark hair. An eerie frigid draft swirled in the closed door space and her neck begged for protection. The brief pain reminded her of the control she possessed, and she jolted from the bed with renewed vitality. </p>
<p>Quentin startled at Julia’s actions but stayed mute. Her puppy was attempting to nap inside of Quentin’s hoddie/hair combo, and the man was evidently at peace with that fact. With a few tuts, Julia started up the music, keeping it low, as she wouldn’t want to disturb the puppy. She wandered around her room as if she was in a stranger’s house. Julia opened drawers of different colored leggings and various band tees and pretended to put away items that were already in their place. She sang along to a minor Jojo hit and pondered the merit of calling in Margo, whose means of handling these 
situations were questionable when Quentin spoke.

</p>
<p>
“How were you able to do it? After what happened? How were you able to move on?”  Quentin interrupted himself by coughing once. The abrupt disturbance caused the puppy to whimper in his sleep, but Quentin was quick to soothe him back to rest. Julia’s heart and stomach traded places as she observed the interaction. She desperately wanted to snatch the animal from his grasp and force this now strange adult that she’d adored since her childhood far away. </p>
<p>“After what, exactly?” Julia, truthfully, couldn’t pinpoint one particular event. Is he thinking of her Dad, and how he spent most of Julia’s childhood unmedicated and manic? Or how her mother institutionalize him when she'd had enough? Perhaps Quentin wanted to hash it out over Brakebills, and the fucked up mind games the Chatwin’s played on them? Shit. Julia had been a goddess. A person couldn’t fall harder. He couldn’t possibly want to discuss Reyn-</p>
<p>“Umm, the sacrifice that you know—how you and Kady met. When you know--,” Quentin faltered and mimed a knife-sawing motion over his heart as he released a supposed self-deprecating laugh. </p>
<p>“Yeah?” She prodded. </p>
<p>Quentin pried her puppy from the folds of his hoodie. He ran his thumb along the length of its belly and avoided looking at her. “You rebuilt yourself after what that thing did to you, Jules. After you lost magic, and learned the truth about Fillory.” Quentin glanced up, but the direction of his gaze didn’t quite align with her’s. “You’re strong. Stronger than I ever was. Or am.” </p>
<p>Julia reclined near her dresser and pursed her lips as she mulled over Quentin’s words. She’d thought he wanted to dance. “You’re wrong.” He opened his mouth to speak over her, but Julia spoke faster. She knew how to argue with Quentin. “It had nothing to do with me being stronger or you being weaker. Shit happens.” </p>
<p>Quentin contorted his face into a million and one frown lines, and Julia hoped that Eliot had him on a rigorous skincare plan. She scoffed at his dislike of her answer, but then she understood too well, the bottomless craving for a definite “Yes” or “No” to life’s fucked up conundrums. What was the point of magic if Julia still ended up raped and Quentin still ended up killing himself? What the fuck was the point of it all? </p>
<p>“Brakebills owes us reparations!” she shouted, and she’s not clear if the pained yelp came from Quentin or the startled, awakened puppy. The sound caused a volcano of breathless giggles to erupt from Julia, who curled her fist around her knees as all her oxygen was jailbroken from her lungs.<br/>
“Jules, are you alright?” Quentin stood nearby, but not touching. He guarded his usually restless hands in the front pockets of his dark blue hoodie. Her face had taken on the bloaty pressure of unshed tears, and Julia realized that she’d lost time. “Damn,” she muttered and uncoiled to full height.<br/>
A mental checklist of her own shitty coping skills rattled around her brain, but atleast hers were approved by a therapist. Julia stepped aside from Quentin and searched for her puppy by his name that wasn’t quite a name in a gentle sing song voice. </p>
<p>“He’s under the bed. I think I scared him when I screamed,” Quentin confessed sheepishly. Julia chuckled and coaxed the pet from under her bed. She sat on the floor and stroked his fluffy coat, using the animal to center herself. </p>
<p>“What was that all about?” Quentin asked her. His hands were visible, but motionless. </p>
<p>“That was me, not being over things.” She bounced the puppy under her chin the way she saw new mothers do to their newborn babies in the park. They always seemed to be enjoying it. </p>
<p>“Okaaay,” Quentin drew out his words when he felt overwhelmed, which was nearly every waking moment of his life. </p>
<p>Julia stopped bouncing the puppy and studied her friend. “Is this about the whole, you digging yourself out of an unmarked grave, thing?” </p>
<p>As if sensing that Julia was about to get her ass handed to her, Kady kicked open the door with snacks. She was oblivious to the tension or pretended to be while floating the requested tray in the air. “Here ya go, fuckfaces.” Kady wielded a series of graceful tuts to arrange the tray on the bed. “Everything you asked for and more. Laid out on a silver platter.” Kady gifted them a surprisingly gracefully curtsy and flashed them double middle fingers as she stood up straight.  “Well, not actual silver, but-” The mood of the room overtook her and the lightness that shrouded Kady within her home disappeared, leaving behind a scowling battle ridden tank. </p>
<p>She aimed that scowl at Quentin, but spoke to Julia. “What’s wrong? What happened?” </p>
<p>Julia sat the puppy on the carpet and stepped towards her girlfriend. She caught Kady mid-glare and tore her eyes away from the cowering man in the room. “Nothing. Q was just bitching about Eliot and then it was my turn to bitch about what a nightmare you are.” Kady’s sliver of a smile told Julia that she had calmed the situation down for now, but she would need to be careful if she didn’t want to worry her. She tucked a wild curl behind Kady’s ear that earned Julia a scarlet flush across her girlfriend’s cheeks. Julia smirked at the reaction and folded her arms across her chest as she angled her lips to Kady’s ear. “If we didn’t have company, I’d tease you about how easy you are. Now, I’m going to go wash my hands. Don’t scare Quentin.”<br/>
Julia carried Kady’s much needed warmth with her to the ensuite bathroom and scrubbed her hands faster than Kady could cast. When she emerged, Julia instructed a skittish Quentin to do the same before she dove into her food.<br/>
“Don’t let him upset you,” Kady said from the doorway. “His problems don’t need to be yours or vice versus.” </p>
<p>Julia swallowed an apple slice. “Stop. It isn’t like that. You don’t get what it-” </p>
<p>“What it means to take on the emotional shit of the people you love, even though you know they won’t ever change?” Kady’s gemstone green eyes scrutinized every inch of Julia’s face. “My mom. Penny. You.” She tilted her head and made her voice flat. “Trauma bonding can’t be the only reason for you two to have a hangout sesh.” </p>
<p>“Did you eat all the almond butter?” Quentin slouched in the bathroom's archway. He peeked at Kady when he thought she wasn't looking.<br/>
“You better get to it before she destroys it all. You losers have fun. Try not to fight over who gets to make out with Jonathan Taylor Thomas’ poster first.” Kady flipped them off in lieu of a goodbye, before slamming the door to Quentin’s cries. “You told her that! We did a blood oath in your parent’s garage and swore that we wouldn’t disclose that information to a soul, Jules!” </p>
<p>Julia dodged an empty water bottle thrown her way. “We used packaged red Kool-Aid. That’s not exactly iron-clad as far as blood oaths go.” She tossed a half-eaten apple at his head. “Now, quit squirming around before you accidentally step on my dog. Then you’ll really be depressed.” </p>
<p>Quentin rolled his eyes, but did as he was told. They both sat criss-cross applesauce on her bed as they ate their way through the platter of food. The puppy curled up at the foot of the bed, and Julia soon heard his savage snores while they ate in silence. </p>
<p>She wished she could accept Kady’s advice. Julia hoped that one day she and Quentin could have normal hangouts that weren’t hour by hour rage sessions of what their psyches could or would endure. She’d be lying if she said that she never thought she was stronger than Quentin. It hadn’t taken Reynard laying waste to her life for Julia to understand life’s unexpected torments. She gained that knowledge long before he entered stage right. It had been the loss of magic, the very same thing that had broken Quentin. But her loss began earlier than his, and when Brakebills rejected her, they tore out a hidden piece of her soul. A person she’d been thirty-nine times and hadn’t known existed. How could Julia ever explain the pain of having her entire reality disassembled and scattered like she was a failed science experiment? </p>
<p> “It will hurt until it doesn’t, and then you’re just numb to it all,” She told Quentin. He examined her over his apple. Confusion and almond butter coated his face. </p>
<p>“But you’re happy now—you have this nice ass house and Kady,” Quentin used his forgotten snack to punctuate the air. “And the dog! You have the puppy and he’s so great, Jules.” The steam he’d picked up at the beginning had wilted. Nevertheless, he granted Julia a lame, if not kind, smile. “I want my version of this happiness.” </p>
<p>Julia laughed without opening her mouth. “When you came back, you told me that you were different now, so then, you should know. Happiness is--” She trailed off, wanting to select her words carefully. “Its abstract art or a really good milkshake.” She snickered and knew she wasn’t explaining herself clearly. She twirled an apple stem between her thumb and right index fingers.  “Happiness is like Theoretical Physics.” </p>
<p>Quentin laid his bruised apple piece on the tray. “Meaning?” </p>
<p>“Meaning that there are plenty of rigorous regulations about what happiness is, but only semi-empirical approaches to obtain it, using half-formed theories.” Physics had been one of her best subjects in school, but Julia found little value for it in her day-to-day life. </p>
<p>Quentin laughed without any amusement. “Abstract art, huh.” He wiped his palms onto his jeans and nodded his head twice as if in hushed negotiations with himself. “You know, I’ve read all these high fantasy books, and at the end of the adventure, no matter what happened, there’s always two people left standing.” He’d snorted and rested an elbow on his knee. Quentin flapped his free palm under his chin as he continued. “Or at least a merry little gang of misfits that somehow stick it out.” He stabbed at the air, killing some not entirely imaginary beast. “They overcome the horrors together.”  He stared past Julia, out past her four walls, to a place that she can’t follow. Not even with her type of magic.<br/>
“Q,” she whispered, the way she used to when she visited him in the hospital. The way you whispered when you identified a body on a coroner’s table. The way you whispered at funerals. She’d whispered the same way when Margo called her from Eliot’s hospital’s room and told her the news. Julia was ashamed to admit that she had prepared for years to receive a version of that call since Quentin’s first attempt. </p>
<p>“Quentin,” she said, his name louder. </p>
<p>He blinked, molasses-slow, back into his body. He graced Julia with that signature half-smile of his. That down on his luck, but surprise! Quentin has a dimple, smile. It’s the type of smile that compels a person to gather Quentin Coldwater into their coat pocket and fight off the monsters of the world. “Hey, you okay?” She asked, not sure if she wanted the answer.</p>
<p>“I was telling the truth, you know. I know now that those are just stories for children,” Quentin explained. “I know the difference. What a real ending looks like.” His voice came out hoarse and exhausted. Julia didn’t argue. She recalled how thin he was when he appeared at Brakebills. Quentin’s limbs caked in dirt and his own blood. He’d walked barefoot for days through the woods until he found them.  </p>
<p>Quentin laid back against the headrest without uncrossing his legs. He closed his eyelids and laced his fingers over his stomach. “When I was dead, there wasn’t ever a time I didn’t think I deserved it.” He lets out a long-suffering sigh that she knows would even impress Eliot. </p>
<p>“Jesus, fuck. You’re a downer.” She threw the last browning apple slice at his mopey face and got up to put the tray in the hallway. Quentin glowered at her from his raised stance on both elbows. “Hey, I came here for support.” </p>
<p>“You came here to be dramatic and to steal my dog’s affection. What? Did Eliot threaten you with no more blow jobs, again?  </p>
<p>Quentin flopped on the bed like a puppet who had his strings sniped. “It’s complicated.” </p>
<p>Julia yawned. “It always is.”  She watched him pout and then huffed an exasperated sigh. “You wanna dance?” Julia didn’t wait for his answer. It wasn’t needed. “Let’s dance.” </p>
<p>She flicked her hand out and started up one of her playlists. Quentin arched his bushy brows at her horrific wiggle dance, but Julia ignored him. She shimmed over to him and grappled with his clammy figure until she got him standing. </p>
<p>“There ya go,” she said in her best 2010 Snooki Jersey Shore accent. “Shake that money maker, hon-ey.” Quentin awkwardly hunched bedside her. </p>
<p>“I have no money maker to shake,” He retorted, lamely. “This body shape is not in high demand.” </p>
<p>Julia lifted her arms and started doing the windmill motion. “Time to slam that mini-van door, brother.” </p>
<p>“Are you Hulk Hogan right now? What are you even saying?”  </p>
<p>Julia had enough with Quentin’s wet blanket antics. “I know what will get your engines revvin'.”  She changed the song and was pleased to see she wasn’t wrong.</p>
<p><i>“I wanna know you’re alright/but I don’t wanna to know too much/I had a dream last night/in it you were in a rush”</i> </p>
<p>Quentin beamed at her and started to bop along with the music. His movements had no rhythm or reason. At one point, Julia was pretty sure that Quentin performed the Robot Guy dance from The Chappelle Show. She didn’t call him out on it and showed off her own frantic version of the running man, checking that puppy wasn’t underfoot. </p>
<p>They danced like it’s their middle school days. They danced until they were dizzy from laughter and couldn’t speak. They danced until Kady came upstairs and told them to shut up and then joined them. There was no end in sight.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Shoutout to my brothers over at my Forever Camp Nano discord. They're the only motherfuckers who put up with me.</p>
<p>The song they dance to is RAC- This Song</p></blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>